A wireless mobile data terminal (the User Equipment (UE)) communicates with a server on a connected fixed network. A mobile data terminal may be any device that can send data over a wireless network where the network provides mobility management. Examples of networks include: the GPRS (General packet radio service) (2G) network; the WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) (3G) network; or the LTE (Long Term Evolution) or WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) (4G) network. The background and description of the invention are described in terms of the 3rd Generation Mobile Phone Network, UMTS (Unified Mobile Telephony System)/WCDMA.
Referring to FIG. 1, a schematic diagram shows the UMTS architecture 100 which is standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
The wireless device (cell phone, 3G dongle for a laptop, tablet device, etc.) is known in 3GPP terminology as a User Equipment (UE) 101. It connects wirelessly 110 to the base station which is labelled Base Station (BS) 102 and is known as a Node B in 3GPP terminology. Around 100 Node Bs are connected over microwave or optical fiber 120 to a Radio Network Controller (RNC) 103 which is connected back to a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) 104 (which supports several RNCs) and then a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) 105. Finally the GGSN is connected back to the operators' service network (OSN) 10 which connects to the Internet 107 at a peering point.
The protocols between the cell phone back to the GGSN are various 3GPP specific protocols over which the IP traffic from the UE is tunnelled. Between the RNC 103 and the GGSN 105 a GPRS tunnelling protocol (GTP) 130 is used. Between the GGSN 105, OSN 106 and the Internet 107, standard Internet Protocol (IP) 140 is used. Note that the OSN 106 is termed the “Gi” reference point in the 3GPP terminology.
A key problem with communication via mobile networks is the rapid increase of data traffic. The density of mobile computing platforms is increasing at an exponential rate. Mobile computing platforms include traditional platforms such as phones, tablets and mobile broadband enabled laptops but increasingly also include mobile data enabled devices, such as GPS systems, cars, even mobile medical equipment. This exponential increase brings significant new challenges for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) as data becomes the majority of the content they deliver. Specifically, although additional base stations are fairly easy to deploy to increase the available aggregate “air interface” bandwidth, the connections back from the base stations to the RNC, typically implemented as microwave links, are bandwidth constrained. Upgrading them to fiber optic connections is very expensive. Similarly increasing the available bandwidth in the RNC and core network is expensive.